By Mary O’KEEFE

On Saturday, Crescenta Valley residents cleaned their closets and garages out and got rid of potentially dangerous environmental waste.

Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce partnered with PHAT Energy to provide a safe and convenient way to dispose of electronic waste. Representatives of Global e-recyclers wrapped old computers, printers and televisions in plastic wrap preparing the items for shipment to their recycling center.

Throughout the week residents had dropped off their e-waste at the Chamber’s office. On the day of the event residents drove into the parking lot and employees from Global e-recyclers as well as David Jones from PHAT Energy and Chamber representatives took the items out of car trunks and backseats.

La Crescenta resident Thomas Ettinger took advantage of the e-waste collection.

“We cleaned out everything,” he said. “This is great. It is easy.”

The Chamber had sponsored an e-waste collection last year. Chamber executive director Julia Rabago said that event collected over 15,000 pounds.

“I think we collected more this time,” Rabago said.

It will be a few weeks before she receives an official number of how
much was collected but from sight she said it was larger than the last collection.

This is the first time PHAT Energy has partnered with the chamber on this event. Jones said when he heard about the collection he contacted chamber member Steve Pierce.

“I thought this was a perfect event for us to be involved with,” he said.

PHAT Energy designs solar installations for residential and business locations. Jones said an environmental friendly e-waste event was a perfect fit for their company.

Rabago credits the success of the e-waste collection in part to the partnership with Jones and the support and help from other chamber members like Denise Lenardson, owner of Pyramid Sleep Shop, and Pierce.

The e-waste collection was so successful Rabago would like to schedule an event every six months.

  E-Waste, PHAT Energy